FERC Friday approved a request by Energy Transfer Equity LP subsidiaries Trunkline LNG Co., Trunkline LNG Export and Trunkline Gas Co. to initiate a prefiling review process for their plans to build a natural gas liquefaction project and associated facilities in Lake Charles, LA.

“We believe that beginning the review of this proposal prior to the receipt of your application will greatly improve our ability to identify issues early and address them in our environment documents,” stated a letter order issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Office of Energy Projects. The prefiling process allows a pipeline, landowners and FERC to work out many contentious environmental issues prior to a pipeline filing its application at the Commission, thus speeding up certification of a project.

The Trunkline companies have signaled that they intend to file an application by March 2013, with the goal of placing the liquefaction project in service in March 2018 (see Daily GPI, April 3). They said they are seeking FERC authorization to begin construction by January 2014.

The Lake Charles liquefaction project, a joint venture of Energy Transfer subsidiary Southern Union and BG LNG Services LLC, a unit of BG Group plc, is being developed to liquefy domestic supplies of natural gas for export to foreign countries in order to meet the growing worldwide demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG). The joint venture was formed nearly a year before Energy Transfer completed its acquisition of Southern Union (see Daily GPI, March 27a; May 10, 2011). The JV already has received approval from the Department of Energy to export LNG to countries with which the United States has free trade agreements.

Energy Transfer said its subsidiaries are continuing to work closely with its customer BG Group in the development of the project.

The project is one of a handful of such ideas proposed for the U.S. Gulf Coast, the West Coast and the East Coast (see Daily GPI, March 29; March 27b). Other projects are pending in Alaska and Western Canada (see Daily GPI, April 2; Feb. 10). Probably the best known, Sabine Pass Liquefaction LLC, has been pressing FERC to act on its project, which would interconnect with the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana, but so far the agency has turned a deaf ear to those pleas (see Daily GPI, March 21).

The proposed Lake Charles liquefaction project would be located on a site approximately one-half mile west of the existing Trunkline LNG Lake Charles terminal facilities.

The main components of the project would be three liquefaction trains, each capable of processing up to 800 MMcf/d of domestic gas. Trunkline Gas plans to extend its interstate gas pipeline about one-half mile to provide feed gas to the liquefaction facility. The project is currently planned to export up to 15 million metric tons of LNG per year, which is the equivalent of about 2 Bcf/d.

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